TMNT Classics Trades Are Disappointing
 

Why are these in color? Not that I really mind color but the coloring is horrid. Looks like that crap ass Photoshop coloring Laird did on the first TMNT comic way back when. It honestly ruins the artwork for me. I'm more then glad to see them re-release these stories but why do they have to ruin them with these half ass coloring jobs? They should be re-printed as they were originally printed, in black and white. If they want to colorize them they can do single issues like they're doing for the main series issues. Thank god those collections aren't colored too.

This bother anyone else or am I alone here?

I'm with you on that. I think the coloring in all of the current IDW turtle books kicks ass, but as for the reprinted material, it all IS ass.

It's colored because casual buyers won't pick up a black and white trade that isn't an oversized edition.

I'd take a giant Marvel Essential style book with black and white pages. They could do more issues that way. Hell a lot of those Essential books have color art turned black and white and in a lot of cases the books are better for it cause older coloring techniques were mostly terrible. I know the concern is casuals won't buy this or that but they could have at lease tried before dismissing the idea all together. They didn't even attempt a proper release.

I thought the Raphael and Michelangelo issues were alright. Not outstanding, but still good. I haven't bothered with any of the other issues.

Coloring in those TMNT Classics and TMNT Color Classics is really bad, cheap. I'm sure a lot of people here could provide better coloring FOR FREE if IDW asks them. They reach the highest point of nonsense when they attempt to re-color covers that were already in color and they do that so badly that the new colored cover looks like the amateurish version of the original one!
I would buy a couple of those trades as I miss some of the issues they contains but with those horrible colors.. no, thanks!

I guess I'm just not that judgmental of the color (outside of obvious color mistakes). I like that they are finally colorizing them. If I want to read the B&W versions, I'll just pull out the old issues or my old trades.

I like how they colored Shredder in issue 1, his costume was in two colors, metal silver and grayish blue, even his ungloved hands was colored as the suit.

I only have the first two Vol. 1 collections, the one that collects #13 and the Mark Martin trilogy, and I have no problem with the coloring in those collections.

I think the new collections look good. I haven'tbothered with the single issues though. The ultimate collections are much cooler

The point of collections is so you don't have to pull out your old issues. I'd personally prefer not to as I'd like to keep them in good condition. They were originally printed in black and white they should be reprinted that way. At least when they recolored Sandman they did a good job. This looks poor and honestly hurts the artwork. It's inferior. Seems to be the TMNT way. Finally give us something but do it wrong. Give us 2K3 DVDs but mess up the order. Give us Turtles Forever but it's fullscreen and edited. Give us trades of uncollected issues but ruin them with half ass coloring jobs. I know I sound jaded probably because I am. I'm finding less and less reasons to stay a fan lately.

There's more to being a fan than buying merchandise, but I can understand what you mean. You find it hard to continue to financially support the franchise.

These trades are aimed at people who never picked up a Turtle comic before too.

which makes the poor coloring job a bigger crime

As long as all if Vol 1 is collected excluding the Veitch material because he won't sign a deal with IDW, it should be fine.

I just hope Volume 2 isn't re-colored when the whole thing is already in color.

Bobby has already suggested that he thinks they will in order to "keep the coloring consistent." Guess we'll see. I'm still holding out for creator-oriented collections which will hopefully be in black & white.

I'm totally with you on this, they must keep the original colors. After all the coloring of Vol. 2 was better than the one in the new IDW Classics trades. :P
(my avatar on the left is taken directly from a panel of vol. 2)

I can't even understand why they would color Volume 2. They didn't recolor the Archie reprints though so perhaps that's a good sign.

True, but Archie isn't associated with the Mirage comics, whereas Volume 2 is presumably going to be collected under the "TMNT Classics" title. So I think the idea Bobby was trying to express is that they would probably want the coloring in every "TMNT Classics" TPB to be consistent, even if some of those issues being reprinted already have been colored.

I hope they're not doing it that way. They should collect those 13 issues under a different title as they're more than casual issues, they belong to a single story arc. Obviously, supposing they're not collecting them all in only one big book, they should find a good way to name it.
Something not chaotic like:

TMNT Volume 2 volume 1
TMNT Volume 2 volume 2

It would be nice something like:

TMNT Volume 2 - Book one
TMNT Volume 2 - Book two

Or they could use the word "part".

I hope Volume 2 gets the Ultimate collections treatment. Aren't they technically Eastman/Laird issues? Lawson did the art but he did City at War too.

I agree, I hope so too. But I have a feeling they won't, since Bobby mentioned that a reason why they titled these books "classics" is so that they can still throw the Image series under the same title, as opposed to if they had called the books "Mirage's TMNT" or something like that. They want to keep all these reprints as streamlined as possible, which is understandable.

TMNT Volume 2 Volume 1 is definitely not the way to go, though. Book 1 or Part 1 is definitely better.

Eastman's and Laird's involment was very limited. They probably gave him ideas about the plot but, according to miragelicensing.com, every issue has Lawson as the only writer. I remember that Laird said, responding to a letter published in one issue of volume 4, that the only memory he had of him collaborating at Volume 2 was him giving Lawson some tips to make the conclusion of the series easier to understand. Of course, Laird and Eastman drew all the covers (with the exception of the first one wich was by A.C. Farley) of Volume 2 and as far as I know that was their last "graphical" collaboration.
So, Volume 2 probably doesn't deserve the Ultimate Collection treatment but it doesn't deserve to be thrown among the Classics trades either.

Well IDW should be finished collection Vol. 1 this year. With the Ultimate Collections doing "Shades of Gray" and all of City at War, and the "Classics" up to issue #40...they only have to collect up to issue #47.

They can't collect any of the Veitch issues so those 4 are out, and for some reason #18 was skipped as well.

Souls Winter will probably gets its own collection, and then we only need up to Classics TPB #7 to finish off Vol. 1.

I imagine nearly all pre-IDW TMNT comics will fall under the "Classics" banner save for Adventures and Tales. That's as streamlined as they can get and as far as they should go.

You want disappointing. I was given the First Collection as a gift the same day that the copy of Shellshocked I had just ordered came in the mail. Seeing the original beautiful artwork, corrrupted by the color was terrible and to have them side by side on the same day I couldn't help but compare.

Wait.. don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to see Volume 2 issues getting the Ultimate collection treatment! Maybe they could have Lawson's annotations this time.

Well yeah of course. It's not about money or quality of products in a lot of cases it's just my taste. Viacom hasn't really been putting out the kind of TMNT I enjoy. The Nick toon is not the kind of TMNT I want to see and neither is IDW. While I can find a few things about both to like I find more to dislike. Overall I'm left with little things to cling too as to where I made little to no exceptions for any of the Mirage stuff or 2K3. The OT I just accept but it's an ingrained part of my childhood. The Nick toon has the disadvantage of coming past my eyes as an adult and not a little kid. If I was 8 right now I'd be all over it I'm sure. And if I saw the OT as a 20+ year old I'd probably feel the same way about it I do the Nick series.

It's not the quality of the coloring itself that bugs me about the classic trades (I think it's pretty decent), but there are some silly miscolorings.

Some examples that I noticed (without even looking for them)... I'm sure there are more mistakes.

Night Life:
- They mistook the parking meters in the first panel for street lamps (very small street lamps...).
- They colored Donnies bandana as a continuation of his bo staff in one panel during the battle.

New York Ninja:
- In one panel I noticed that they mixed up Chang Lao with one of the mobsters. That can be very confusing...

Don't Judge a Book:
- Sometimes I'm not sure if the coloring studio really understands the scenes it's coloring... A mobster rolls down the stairs, which is shown with him seen in different positions during the same panel. Every position is painted with a different colored jacket! Stylistic device? I don't think so...

Road Trip:
- Again the parking meters that turned into tiny street lamps. That looks so awkward...
- The turtles' "anconal shells" (I hope you know what I mean) look very colorful in one panel.
- They blacked out "The End". Well, I can live with that, but it's still lazy.

If you come to think of the fact that there have been colored versions of "Night Life and "Road Trip", that is pretty slovenly! Maybe they just had the Shellshock versions? While "Night Life's" original colors were a bit lame, "Road Trip" was really nice in "Anything Goes"!

I've got a bad feeling about their upcoming attempt for volume 2...

I'm not a colorist nor have I ever attempted it, (anyone with coloring experience correct me if I'm wrong) but I'm guessing coloring over duoshade is part of the problem. Maybe they don't shade over the duoshade to preserve its effect?

Personally, I LOVE the b/w with duoshade. I'll take it over color any day. That said, if they are going to color these issues than they should eliminate the duoshade/color over it. Give it the same silly pizzaz color treatment the current IDW issues get.

Maybe youre tired of the franchise and its time for you to move on.it happens.I personally think idw is fantastic

that doesn't explain the obvious coloring errors, like coloring hands as the same color as someones clothes.

the coloring choices are odd at times too, such as the colors chosen on Shredder.

This is it. Coloring over the duoshade creates such an unpleasant effect... and it is silly, after all. I mean, this is not black and white art, you can use colors to shade the characters and the objects, you don't need those duoshade lines!

Those 'silly mis-colorings' ARE the lack of quality control, dude. But yeah, that just goes to show how unprofessionally done they are. Not to mention how overly saturated the colors are for a book that's supposed to be visually dark. Not to mention how cheesy some sh*t is, like Triceratons with red eyes on orange skin. They're white on the cover, let's have some consistency. Besides, the white makes them pop & look more menacing, making them red is what a 4 year old who wanted to make something look evil would do. It's a shortcut and a novice move.

I don't at all mean this as to be mean, but more to actually see your work....

"Well, if you think you can do better!"

It's a lot of things but yes that was the summary of what I said. I still buy this stuff though because it's the old material I still enjoy I just wish they would get their stuff together and do it properly. Like others have said, some in more detail then me, this is amateur work that fans on here would most likely do for free just so it could be done properly. I'd really like to see IDW's reasons for this and I'd also wish they'd chime in so they know we're not really happy about this. They usually lurk on here. Maybe we need to make a poll topic so they can really see or maybe they just don't give a crap because they know we will purchase it regardless of how much effort they put into it.

Seconded... Mostly because I really liked the argument about four year olds using red eyes to make something evil... Made me laugh out loud and make me want to see your take on it Powder

For what it's worth I can only speak for myself, and I don't have anything to do with the reprints. If you're dissatisfied, write in to "[email protected]" That's the only way people from IDW are going to see it and for it to have any sort of effect. Not saying it will, but there's no chance otherwise.

I'd be more than happy to if someone wants to provide me with a good clean scan of a page to color.

Well, yeah, maybe "quality" was the wrong word. What I wanted to say, is that I like the look of the colors, tones and effects. If there weren't those mistakes and some awkward decisions like the red eyed Triceratons that you mentioned, I would be satisfied. Just change some colors and it would be perfect - at least in my opinion.

But to be honest, I would prefer B/W as well.

Thanks Bobby, that's what I will do! A little quality control would solve all problems, so maybe letting IDW know about it could help.